Texan schooner San Jacinto

The Texas Navy was officially formed in January 1836, with the purchase of four schooners: Invincible, Brutus, Independence, and Liberty. These ships, under the command of Commodore Charles Hawkins, helped Texas win independence by preventing a Mexican blockade of the Texas coast, seizing Mexican ships carrying reinforcements and supplies to its army, and sending their cargoes to the Texas volunteer army. Nevertheless, Mexico refused to recognize Texas as an independent country. By the middle of 1837, all of the ships had been lost at sea, run aground, captured, or sold. With no ships to impede a possible invasion by Mexico, Texas was vulnerable to attack.

In 1838, President Mirabeau B. Lamar responded to this threat by forming a second Texas Navy. Unlike Sam Houston, Lamar was an ardent supporter of the Texas Navy and saw the urgent need for its continuation. The second Texas Navy was placed under the command of Commodore Edwin Ward Moore, an Alexandria Academy graduate who was recruited from the United States Navy.[1] One of the ships of this second navy was the San Jacinto along with her sister ships, the San Antonio and San Bernard.

Pennant of the San Jacinto

Originally built as one of the Baltimore clippers at the Schott and Whitney shipyard in Baltimore, Maryland and called Viper, she was one of the smallest of a class of schooners and brigs built specifically for the slave trade between 1820 and 1850. A group of six schooners, including La Amistad was built in Baltimore around 1836. They were identified as being "Purposely built and fitted out for use in the slave trade by the United States Consul General in Havana", and Viper was typical of the class.[2]

• U.S. Navy Department. Naval History Division. (1968). The Texas Navy (e-book). U.S. Government Printing Office. OCLC 11274.